Want to support Shepherd?

100% of your donation goes toward new features.

Hi,

Everything you see at Shepherd was built by our exceptional part-time developer. My goal is to hire a full-time developer and speed up the development of new features for authors and readers.

100% of your donation goes toward this goal.

Thanks, Ben Fox

How can I donate?

We take donations via credit card, Paypal, or bank transfer.

Want to make a large donation?

Please get in touch with me, as I would love to chat. I can get creative with fun and unique ways to honor your significant gift. Much like a museum, we can name bookshelves and parts of the website in your honor (and show that in some very fun ways).

We’ve also done several matching campaigns with generous authors. That has worked well in encouraging authors to join as members, knowing their membership has twice the impact.

Thanks, Ben Fox

What is Shepherd’s mission?

Shepherd’s mission is to reimagine book discovery online. We want to create an experience that delights readers and feels like wandering the aisles of your local bookstore. And we want to do this while helping authors to meet the most likely readers for their book. Book marketing is utterly broken, and we are creating a place where they can freely bump into the most likely readers for their book.

How will we help authors?

  1. Shepherd will help authors get in front of the most likely readers for their book. And do this in a way that engages and delights readers.

  2. Shepherd will help authors whose book has that “magic spark” gain more and more free publicity.

  3. Shepherd will create thousands of independent book recommendation channels to give authors a wider range of places their book can be discovered.

How will we help readers?

As a reader, I am incredibly frustrated with online book discovery and how soulless it is. Online bookstores sell books like toothpaste or underwear. Something about that is profoundly wrong. Shepherd will create a magical experience that feels like wandering the aisles of your favorite bookstore.

  1. Shepherd will make it fun for readers to follow their curiosity down rabbit holes while bumping into books and authors along the way.

  2. Shepherd will match a reader’s Book DNA with similar readers to help them find indie book recommendation channels that are a perfect match for what they love to read.

  3. Shepherd will make it easy for readers to share their love of reading with family, friends, and our global audience of readers. We want to create a platform where readers can find readers who share their Book DNA and follow them for new book recommendations.

What is Shepherd’s business model?

We are bootstrapped & don’t waste money.

To get Shepherd started, I’ve funded it using my savings and sweat equity (more about me and why I started Shepherd). To get to sustainability I need support from readers and authors.

Everything you see at Shepherd was built with one part-time developer and one part-time designer. Goodreads has 347 employees listed on LinkedIn; imagine what we could do if we had enough money to hire a full-time developer (or two).

My goal is to break even on our costs this year and make enough to hire a full-time developer next year. In order to have enough money to hire a full-time developer, we need to reach $240,000 a year in total revenue.

What are our costs?

  • 20% - Servers, software, and licensing costs.

  • 30% - Our small team that runs the day-to-day operations.

  • 50% - The cost of our fantastic part-time developer and part-time designer.

How do you currently make money?

Shepherd makes money from our member’s program for authors, affiliate revenue, banner ads, and donations. 

Author Membership Program

We are proudly supported by authors who want to create a better book website and support us with an annual membership year after year. 100% of this program goes toward creating new features for authors and readers. In return, we give authors special perks such as our Book Boost program to feature a book of their choice on the website in special ad spots, featuring their book recommendation lists in a special spot on the front page, hand-tweaking their book’s discover points, and we have a lot more perks coming.

Affiliate Revenue

Partners like Bookshop.org and Amazon give us a small percentage of any book sold from links on Shepherd (this comes from the bookstore and not from authors/publishers). Both Amazon and Bookshop.org only give us credit for sales within 24 to 48 hours, so we don’t get credited for many of the sales we generate.

This helps to offset our costs, but the percentage our partners give us is very low. For example, Amazon pays us 4% to 4.5%. When we sell $10,000 of books, our percentage is only ~$420. Even when we sell $1,000,000 worth of books, that only gives us ~$42,000, which is 17% of our goal of $250,000 a year.

Banner Ads

I hate banner ads, but we need them to cover our current costs. We got accepted into a prestigious ad network, and they are a pleasure to work with. I try to keep the ads as minimal as possible.

My goal is to make Shepherd ad-free. I cand o that if we can get enough authors & readers in our membership program.

Donations

Donations are hugely appreciated. 100% of donations go toward new features and our goal of hiring one full-time developer. 

As you grow, how else will you make money?

Reader Memberships

Soon, we will launch a reader membership program with special perks for readers.

Book Celebration Store

Soon, I will launch an online store with fun stickers and other great swag celebrating reading, books, and authors. And each purchase supports Shepherd’s mission.

Publisher Memberships

I am talking with publishers to understand how Shepherd can help them. I am pitching them on using Shepherd’s custom platform to run aspects of their own website in order to develop and grow their own fan bases (via the web and email). Publishers need to be in direct contact with readers to market the books they publish and create marketing channels they control.

I am also pitching them membership plans that come with special perks & features for their authors. I am especially focused on how I can help them launch new books with more publicity and give them the tools to better convert browsers to buyers.